Children with disability should be treated with dignity

Stephanie Gotlib

Parents of children with disability will find out in a few weeks if this government is serious about funding a school system that will treat their children with dignity and allow them to reach their potential.

Children with disability are one of the groups most affected by the growing gaps in resourcing between advantaged and disadvantaged schools and the unfinished education reforms. This is why delivering the Gonski funding reforms is so important for children with disability.

Factors such as a child’s family background, where they go to school or whether they have a disability must not stop children from getting a quality education. In order to deliver quality education, schools must be funded based on the actual needs of their students, including the extra cost of properly educating children with disability.

The national disability insurance scheme has been in the news in the lead-up to the federal budget; but it is not the whole story for young people with disability. Fair and proper school funding is a separate and equally important issue for many children with disability.

Like the NDIS, an increase in school funding for students with disability has bipartisan support, on paper at least.

Last year the Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne, admitted that funding arrangements for students with disability were ''unfair and inequitable''. His commitment to deliver extra funding through a ''disability loading'' from 2015 is an opportunity to transform lives and is most welcome. There is uncertainly about whether this will start on time and how the considerable unmet need will be funded.

Advertisement

Failure to implement this promised loading on time would be a terrible let down to a group of children who are recognised as being failed by the current system.

Students with disability and their families have hope but no certainty. Every day in our office we hear stories of children with disability being seriously let down by the current school system, because there is a lack of understanding, a lack of resources and because the system is inflexible at times.

School completion rates for students with disability are confronting. One quarter of people with disability do not get past year 10, and only 36 per cent of people with disability complete year 12.

At the moment underfunding means that there are an estimated 100,000 students with disability not getting the support they need. Australia has greater achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students than other OECD nations, and children with disability are too often on the wrong side of those gaps.

Extra funding will not remove every barrier that a child with disability faces overnight, but, if followed through, it will ensure that all students get an education that gives them a chance to achieve their potential economically and socially.

Every classroom in Australia is likely to have a student with disability, and teachers and schools need to be trained and equipped to support them. Research shows that an inclusive education system provides significant benefits for students with and without disability, and for teachers.

At the moment underfunding means that there are an estimated 100,000 students with disability not getting the support they need.

Properly educating students with disability will cost us more in the short-term. But it is a long-term investment to ensure that these students can participate in the community and the workforce. Better funding for children with disability must involve better support for public schools because 80 per cent of children with disability attend public schools, compared with 65 per cent of the general population.

I am concerned that there is a misconception that the battle has been won, and needs-based funding for students with disability is here to stay, because states have signed education agreements with the federal government. Unfortunately this is not the case.

The Abbott government has only committed to four of the six years of the agreements. This creates major uncertainty for the long term, and the fact that the disability loading is yet to be delivered only compounds this.

A child with a disability entering school this year, should know whether the support they need will be there when they are in years 5 and 6.

Education reform is important, not just for the sake of fairness, but because we damage our society by not ensuring that everyone has access to a decent quality education.

Parents of children with disability have the same dreams for their children as all parents; that they feel accepted and happy at school, that they learn to the best of their ability, and that their education equips them for life and work after school.

Until we fix school funding, and ensure that all schools meet minimum standards, we are failing these children.

Stephanie Gotlib is executive officer of Children with Disability Australia